Hacker groups LulzSec and Anonymous have made their point clear: they can infiltrate pretty much any government/corporate system they choose, and can cause plenty of chaos while doing so. In 2011 alone, Sony, Fox.com, PBS, NATO, Pron.com, the Arizona Police Department, the CIA, News Corp., Bank of America and many more were hacked by the two groups.

Just this week, the FBI arrested 16 alleged members who were associated with some of the cyber attacks. Fourteen were responsible for the attack against PayPal last December, while the fifteenth person was arrested on charges associated with the intrusion of computer systems at InfraGard and the sixteenth had allegedly downloaded thousands of documents related to AT&T's LTE broadband network and 4G data network. Those arrested ranged from ages 20 to 42, and were located in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington D.C. and Ohio.

When these arrests were made, the FBI's Deputy Assistant Director Steven Chabinsky told NPR that this victory for the FBI sends "a message that chaos on the Internet is unacceptable." Hackers responded with the following message:

We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir. It is our mission to help these people and there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- you can possibly do to make us stop.

The message didn't end there. Anonymous also added that governments and corporations are the real enemy, and even listed why.

Now let us be clear here, Mr. Chabinsky, while we understand that you and your colleagues may find breaking into websites unacceptable, let us tell you what WE find unacceptable:

Governments lying to their citizens and inducing fear and terror to keep them in control by dismantling their freedom piece by piece.

Corporations aiding and conspiring with said governments while taking advantage at the same time by collecting billions of funds for federal contracts we all know they can't fulfill.

Lobby conglomerates who only follow their agenda to push the profits higher, while at the same time being deeply involved in governments around the world with the only goal to infiltrate and corrupt them enough so the status quo will never change.

Chabinsky noted in the NPR interview that LulzSec and Anonymous' activities, no matter the reason, could put citizens in danger of terrorists or organized crime groups caught a glimpse of the government documents the hacker groups leak online.

"There has not been a large-scale trend toward using hacking to actually destroy websites, [but] that could be appealing to both criminals or terrorists," said Chabinsky. "That's where 'hacktivism,' even if currently viewed by some as a nuisance, shows the potential to be destabilizing."

LulzSec tweeted a similar message to Anonymous' on July 21, with a quirky twist:

"Arresting people won't stop us, FBI," said LulzSec's tweet. "We will only cease fire when you all wear shoes on your heads. That's the only way this is ending."

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

Their ideas and results are mostly empty though. It is very hard spread an idea when the benefits are abstract and not tangible. It is not like going against paying taxes, the ability to read any book, or vote.

In my opinion it is a lot posturing by youths.

And the collateral damage seems very high for the results they are achieving.